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Thursday, December 13, 2012

OPI Skyfall Comparisons, Part 1

Here, finally, are some comparisons of OPI Skyfall polishes—just the warm Seductive Shades today; I'll have the cool-toned hues tomorrow. Many of the polishes I chose to compare are no longer in stores, but I figured they may be in your stash, as they are in mine.

I used two coats of all three of these red shimmers, no topcoat. Left to right: Crimson Carol, The Spy Who Loved Me, Ruby Slippers. No dupes here. The base of Crimson Carol is a cooler red than The Spy, and its shimmer has more colors. Ruby Slippers is closer as far as base color, but its shimmer is silvery pink rather than the warm golden orange of The Spy.

To compare with Die Another Day, I pulled Milani Melt With U and Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine Luminous.

Like the reds above, all of these are two coats, no topcoat. Also like the trio above, there are no dupes. Left to right: Melt With U, Die Another Day, Luminous. Both the Milani and the Sally Hansen are more red-toned than the OPI. The Sally Hansen's shimmer is quite similar to the OPI, while the Milani is more flecked.

Finger Paints Magenta Mood and Joe Fresh Sweet Tart Bon Bons looked to be the two closest matches for You Only Live Twice when I flipped through my nail wheels.

Now we're into dupe territory; with two coats of each of these, I had a hard time telling them apart. Left to right: Magenta Mood, You Only Live Twice, Sweet Tart Bon Bons.

In the bottles, Rescue Beauty Lounge Drifter and Finger Paints Shades of Fall seemed like good matches for Casino Royale.

On the nail, the OPI looked more purple than the other two. Left to right: Drifter (1 coat), Casino Royale (2), Shades of Fall (2).

I knew I had to have a better match, what with my love for purple, so back into the stash I went and came up with Orly Plum Noir.

I'd noticed that Casino Royale looked like it could use some smoothing out (no doubt I'd rushed through the second coat of color); instead of putting on another coat of color, I grabbed a bottle of clear that was handy. Too late, I realized it had been contaminated with a smattering of silver sparkles at some point. (No doubt I'd previously used it to topcoat something blingy that wasn't quite dry.) So here you see a slightly sparkly Casino Royale on the left and Plum Noir (2 coats, no topcoat) on the right. These are so close in color I'm comfortable saying you don't need both.

For the other creme in the collection, Skyfall, I chose Joe Fresh Brick and OPI Vampire State Building for comparison purposes.

All of these deep rust cremes were two coats, no topcoat. Left to right: Brick, Skyfall, Vampire State Building. The Joe Fresh is a touch darker and oranger than Skyfall. Vampire State Bulding looks like it has the same base color as Skyfall, but is a tiny bit deeper. I bet a few drops of black in Skyfall would make a good dupe for the long discontinued and now hard to find Vampire State Building.

You may have noticed that the three nails in the above shot aren't the same three that were in the earlier photos. At this point in the swatching session, the patch I had on my middle nail was starting to show a lot of wear and tear; rather than stop and redo it, I just took it out of the picture and used my index finger instead. To make it easier to hold my index finger close to my ring finger, I looped a sturdy rubber band between them. I felt rather ingenious, if I do say so myself.

Finally, we have Goldeneye. Even though I am not a gold lover, I found two polishes in my stash that looked like possible matches: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Gilded Lily and Orly Glitz & Glamour.

Left to right: Gilded Lily (3 coats), Goldeneye (3), Glitz & Glamour (2). I couldn't really tell any difference between the Sally Hansen and the OPI. The Orly is denser and its shimmer particles are smaller, but it's very similar in color and blinginess.

I hope these comparisons help with your buying decisions, but wonder if I should try to use more core/currently available polishes for comparisons to make them more useful for more people. Let me know your thoughts in the comments if you're so inclined.

The OPI Skyfall collection polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.

11 comments:

Actually for a non-US these comparisons are somehow lemming creators :-P anyway they are really useful (I own Plum Noir so I know I don't need the OPI)!!I'm in love with The Spy who loved me, perhaps I should just buy the Bondettes set...

I do think it would be more helpful for most people if you used more current polishes in your comparisons--I do use comparisons to determine if I already have a similar polish, but also to help me decide between two similar polishes currently being released--like Zoya Ziv vs. OPI Goldeneye, or Zoya Logan and Butter London Jack the Lad, etc. (I realize they're not super similar, but it's hard to know that unless you see them near each other...which is very helpful to me.)